E 423 
.C52 
Copy 1 



4'^ 



SPEECH 



HON. LANGDON CHEYES. 



SOUTHERN CONVENTION, 



] 



AT NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, 



NOVEMBER 14, 1850. 




PUBLISHED BY THE SOUTHERN EIGHTS ASSOCIATION. 
1850. 



SPEECH. 



We meet on a luelanclioly occasion. It is to devise the means of 
defending tlie Southern States against a great and alarming danger, 
with which we are not threatened by a foreign foe or a common enemy, 
but by our fellow-citizens, whom fraternai feelings, whom fidelity to 
plighted faith, and whom gratitude for great benefits, which, more than 
all other causes, ha\e made them gi-eat, wealthy and powerful, should 
ha\e made our hearty friends, and our devoted alhes in all adversity. 
Instead of which, we find them our most unjust oppressors, our bitter 
and most unappeasable enemies. Having deprived us, practically, of 
all power under the common government which bound us together, they 
are aiming at the subversion of our dearest rights, the destruction of 
oiQ- most valuable property, and the desolation of our country. 

Our inquiry will, of coiirse, be of Southern rights, Southern A\-rongs, 
and Southern dangers. The general rights of the Southern States are 
those of equal, independent, unabridged sovereignties. Our independent 
sovereignty was asserted from t^e beginning of the government,^ and 
maintained tnumphantly, within a few yeare after the adoption of the 
Constitution of the United States. The old federal doctrines, of strong 
government and constructive powers, were put down. In the South and 
West, there was but one voice on the subject. Such was the devotion 
to State independence, such the generous spirit of the people of the 
South and AVest, as expressed in the resolutions of Virginia and Ken- 
tucky, in 1*798, that, had not the dangers then contemplated, though 
not amounting to a tithe of those by which we are now threatened, 
been averted at the polls, it would have been done by force. _ The base 
idea, of taking " the best we could get," entered into no mind. The 
only questions were, what were our rights, our whole and unal>ridged 
rights, and how they should be maintained? The universal pubhc scorn 
would have scathed, with the power of the vivid lightning, the dastard 
who would have consented to accept compromises, or talk of taking a 
fragment of those rights, as " the best we could get." Who would then 
have dared to propose submission to our equals ? Who would then 
have been mean enough even to deliberate on such degradation ? But 
the noble spirit of that day seems to be extingwished ; and, miless it 
can be roused, you are destined to become " the basest, meanest of man- 
kind." You will suffer the most conspicuous infamy that ever charac- 
terized a people. You will cease to be a people, and your homes and 



4 SPEECH OF HON. LAXGDON CHEVES. 

your homes and lieurths will be oeciii)ied b}' those who are now your 
slaves. 

The dangei', however gTeat, which we suffer, is nevertheless from oui' 
own creature. The States have all sovereignty. They have only gi-anted 
to the Union, as tlieir agent, in trust, the execution of certain hmited 
functions. This great and ])ortentous power, which now hangs over us, 
would be dissipated, hke a cloud, if it only covered constitutional gToimd. 
It surprises xis, on investigation, to see how little sovereignty is vested 
in a go\ernment that now looms, as the sailors say, immensely hirge. 
It has no distinct identity. It has not even a name of identity. It has 
no power, under the Constitution, to acquire, by conquest or otherwise, 
an inch of territory, except for the seat of government, and, with the 
consent of the States, for forts and arsenals. This -was the doctrine of 
the federalists, who are the present freesoilers, when Louisiana was ac- 
quired, and it is a somid constitutional doctrine. The appropriation of 
that territory, in the form of new^ States, was merely by the acquies- 
cence of the several independent States in whom it was vested. It is 
no more authorized by the Coustitution of the Union, than was the 
Missouri Compromise, which excluded slavery beyond the hue of 36 ■ 
degrees, .30 minutes, which is wholly founded on the acquiescence of 
the several States. Time, with that acquiescence, has given valichty to 
these transactions. According to sound constitutional law, California is 
not, and cannot be a State, without the acquiescence of each and every 
State of the Union. Whether she is a State or not, may yet be a ques- 
tion, before "the gi-eat argument," pending between the South and the 
JSTorth, shall be finally concluded. 

But admitting that California is a State, and that, according to the 
forms of the Union, her admission is valid, her introduction, under all 
the circumstances, with the exclusion "of sla^-ery, is the most prominent 
of the recent wrongs that the South has suffered. It was tyrannical, it 
was fraudulent, it was insulting The territory was acquired by your 
blood and treasure, to a much greater extent than by those of the sec- 
tion of country wliich has bereaved you of all share in it. Can any 
tyranny be greater than to rob you of it ? You had as full and clear a 
right to it, in equity and law, as you have to the soil of the States which 
you occupy and cultivate ; and the miserable pretences by \^hich you 
were excluded from it, only incieased the injury, by the insults which 
they constitute. It is said that the admission of California is not incon- 
sistent with the Constitution, by which is meant merely that Congress 
\ has the power to admit a new State into the Union. The highest vio- 
■^ lation of the Constitution is to employ the use of its forms to violate its 
spirit. The great object of such institutions is the security of the rights 
of the citizen. Now", the admission of California was expressly vrith a 
view to destroy yom- property in the territory; and to make it instru- 
mental in destroying slavery within all the States. Is it not farcical, 
then, to say that it was constitutional ? Had they come into your do- 
mestic territory, and turned you out of your homes, it would not have 
been a clearer violation of right, or more unjust, though the violence 
might have been greater. - 

The manner, too, eminently bore the impress of tp-auny. The mih- 



SPEECH OF HON. LANXIDOX CHEVES. 



taiy power, of wliicli all free States are, or ought to be, in the liighest 
degree jealous, was the immediate instrument used for its aecomphsh- 
ment. A subordinate officer, in regular rank not exceeding, I believe, 
the grade of colonel, calls upon a population, contemptible in number, 
disqualified in character, whether recent squatters or the simple and 
ignorant conquered people, to perform the gi-eat work of statesmen, to 
appropi'iate to their own use a vast territory, equal to the aggregate 
extent of many of the largest States in the Union, embracing all our 
ocean border, all our ports and harbours on the great Pacific, to one 
foot of which not one, nor all of them, had a political right. Does the 
history of nations, from tlie earliest records to the present time, furnish 
any thing like a parallel to it ? Was ever a people treated with such 
utter contempt by one branch of their go\"ernment ? 

These gi-ave and learned legislators form a constitution, and demand 
admission into the Union, and begin by a violation of the Constitution 
of the Union, in making a claim to, two representatives instead of one, 
and contrary to an express article of that instrument, which required 
that the mode and manner of their election should have been previously 
prescribed by the Legislature of the State. Their haste was too gi'eat 
even to wait- for the establishment of a Legislature. In better times, 
when your old, ^veil-tried and established citizens respectfully appUed 
for admission into the Union, such extravagances were not dreamt of, 
nor would they have been tolerated ; yet Congress admitted this mon- 
strous deform,ity, mth none of the probationary tests which had always 
Ijefore been required, with a haste which forbade all in^■estigation, by 
the people of the L^nion, of the physical character of the country, or 
the fitness of the population to form a State, or the manner in which 
these pretended rights had been exercised. The miserable juggle of 
non-intervention was played off. It was alledged that CongTcss had no 
power to control the small and motley population which wantonly pre- 
sumed to do this great pohtical act. How false, how impudent an as- 
sertion I CongTcss had undoubtedly a right to govern and dictate the 
mode and manner of their admission into the L^nion, Avhether they had 
the power to make California a State or not, which, as has already been 
shown, is at least very questionable. All other States have gone through 
a probationary course ; but California, even in its swaddling clothes, in 
haste and with violence, is forced into the Union, with all these and 
many more iinjierfections on its head, under the absurdity of non-inter- 
vention. Oi this puerile fancy, any man of common sense would be 
ashamed. Yet I understand that the paternity of it belongs to a dis- 
tinguished gentleman who very modestly aspires to be put at the head 
of the government of the United States, and that his principal claim on 
the Southern States is founded on this great invention. Statesmen, 
now-a-days, invent principles to suit occasions, as readily as our eastern 
friends invent instruments for the paring of apples, or making of pins, 
and though without their usefulness or merit, we as readily adopt them. 
One might suppose they had been diligent students in the Academy of 
Lagado. It has been asserted, by this distinguished gentleman, that 
the meagre group of California had a right, xmcontrollable by Congress, 
or any other power, to form themselves into a State, and, of course, to 



SPEECH OF HON. LAXGDON CHEVE!- 



apT»'-<)priate to their own use, this ^-ast temt(irv, tlie whole ocean coast, 
and the most vahiable mines in tlie world ; and if this ^-reat inventoi- 
be right, there are no rights of domain ■reser\ed to the United States : 
for, according to him, the}' are a sovereign peoi)le. Is it not monstrous, 
even in language, to hear such an assemblage of persons as these were, 
called n people, by which is meant a State, and to say that, before their 
admission into the Union, they could exercise sovereignty over a large 
portion of the continent ? 

California did not belong to them, any move than it did to the grand 
Turk. It was conquered by the j)eople of the United States, and ceded 
to the people of the United vStates in sovereignty. The' sovereignty 
thus ceded was vested either in the Ignited States, as a consolidated 
body, or in the States collectively, as independent sovereigns. If the 
former, the population of California could not budge an inch, except 
under the authority of the go^-ernment of the United States, wliich had 
all the powers of an absolute sovereign over them. If the latter, then 
the like powei-s were nested in the States, under whose acquiescence the 
government of the Union could control them, a.s -ss-as done in the case 
of Louisiana. If this Senator be right, as to the i)ower of the popula- 
tion, they could lia\e re-annexed the tej-ritory to Mexico, instead of the 
United States. Why not ? According to him, they were not undei- 
the control of the United States, or any other sovereign. The tiue 
cpiestion is, was California fairhj admitted into the Union i The nega- 
tive of this proposition has, I think, been already abundantly proved. 
But I go on. A large portion of the small po])ulation of the territory 
was decidedly opposed to the formation of a State, and desirous of a 
territorial gov^ernment ; but they were silenced by the grossest misrepi-e- 
scntations. An agent of the general government was sent to California, 
to co-operate in the establishment of a State which should exclude slaAC 
labour. He was a secret agent, so far as the peojde of the Union or 
the legislative power of the Union was concerned. No one doubts 
what he was sent there for, or what he did, notwithstanding the arts 
with which the transaction was covered. No trace of liis instructions 
can be discovered : all that we can learn is, that he uiidrrstood the 
^dews of the President and his cabinet; and, notwthstanding all denials 
to the contrary, no one doubts that "his business was to advance the 
gi-eat work, of bringing this territory into the Union as a non-slavehold- 
ing State. Was not this a gi-oss fraud upon the Soutli ? In better 
times, the I'resident and his ministers would have been impeached for 
this gToss abuse of power; and, if justice had been done, would have 
been d'smissed from office. To lull the South into security or acquies- 
cence, it was asserted, with the utmost confidence, in Congress, and by 
all the agents and i)resses of the freesoilers, that the South had no inte- 
rest in 'the question, as slave labour could not be employed in the terri- 
tory. Now this is an absolute falsehood. There is no portio"n of the 
United States in which slave labom- could be so usefidly and profitably 
employed. Mining is the proper labour of slaves, and, for that pm-])ose, 
where they have existed, they have been employed in all countries and 
times. 

On tliis point, the slave owners would have thought for themselves. 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 7 

and soon liavc dissipated the error and misrepresentation. Bnt they 
were met by another misrepresentation, -which, I think, I shall prove to 
be eqnally false, l)y those who had the power to ^make their opinion 
prophetic, that slaves entering the territoi-y would be, by that act, eman- 
cipated, under the INIexican laws, which were alledged to be of force in 
the teri'itor)'. By this assertion, coming from such a source, the slave ^/ 
owner Avas intimidated ; and, before he liad time to look about him, 
the conti-i\ances of a free State estopped him. The slaveholding States 
were thus deprived of \'ast advantages, which their slaves Avould ha\'e 
yielded them. These advantages liave been enjoyed by all the ^•aga- 
bonds of the world, and even by foreign convicts. Now, this o})inion I 
belie \'e to have been as unfounded, as that the territory was not fitte^l 
for slave labour. 

Tlie alleged law of ]\Iexico was declared l\y revolutionary and mili- 
tary go\ernnients, in which the jjeople-of ^lexico had no agency'. The 
first act simply declared that slavery was abolished. Within a veiy 
short time after, (this fact proving the ephemeral, unstable and unau- 
thoritative character of these governments) under a new constitution, as 
it Avas called, taking no notice of the iirst; treating it as if it had never 
existed, it was repeated that slaA'erj'- was abolished, and that the owners 
should be comjiensated for their property. This compensation was equi- 
tably, and, I think, in legal construction, a condition precedent, of the x^ 
perfoi-mance of which, there is not a tittle of evidence. Can slavery, 
then, be said to have ceased in Mexico ? California was a distant terri- 
tory, unconnected with Mexico, (except, perhaps, by military compul- 
sion) Avith proljably not a slave in it ; for all the negroes in Mexico did 
not exceed six or eight thousand, and they were all in the ports of Vera 
Cruz and Acapulco, and the hot regions in the vicinity of the sea coast. 
Throughout Mexico generally, it is said, a negro was as rare a sight as 
in London or Paris. Peonage there substituted African slaveiy, and 
was, in itself, and still is, practically, an abject state of sla\ery. The 
validity of such a law, luider all circumstances, in California itself, among 
the original population, may be considered very doubtful. ]^ut, admit- 
ting it to be a valid law, enacted by a just, free and estabhshed govern- 
ment, it could not be allowed in a conquered country, to .contravene a 
great and fundamental institution t)f the conqueror. Such was slavery 
in the United States when California wa.s ceded. When the nnion of 
the States was consumnntted, I believe there Avas but one State in which 
slavery did not exist, and in almost every i)age of *the Constitution it is 
recognized and guaranteed. It is represented on the floor of the House ■ 
of Representatives ; it is taxed in the imposition of revenue. The res- 
toration of slaves, as ]iroperty, is guaranteed. Unlike all other property, 
it is made a prominent and visible character of the State. Is it jiot, 
then, a great and fundamental institution of the conqueror, having no 
' reference to ])articular States or localities, but embracing ISIassadiusetts 
as well as Louisiana ? If ])rejndice could be laid aside, in the in^•estiga- 
tion, would it not be admitted that it could no more be aftected by a law 
of the conquered country, than that which secures to all the people of 
the States the freedom of their religious o])inions ? Now, the umpies- 
tional)le laws of Mexico Avould deny this right, if tluy were obligatory 



«^ 



8 SPEECH OF H0^\ LANGDON CHEVES. 

in the ceded territory ; yet, it would be deemed little shoi't of insanity to 
assert such a proposition. When the Constitution of the United States 
was adopted, (and that is the era to which we are to look, in seeking the 
true meaning of the' instrument,) the whole ci\'ilized world recognized 
and protected this property, in all places and under all circumstances 
where other property was protected. In a decree of the greatest and 
ablest administrator and expounder of national law that the age pro- 
duced, (Lord Stowell, better known as Sir William Scott,) he says, 
" Let me not be misunderstood or misrepresented . as a professed apolo- 
gist for the practice [the slave trade] when I state facts which no man 
can deny, that personal slavery, arising out of forcible captis'ity, is coeval 
with the earliest 2:)eriods of the historj- of mankind ; that it is found ex- 
iifting (and as far as appears without animadversion) in the earliest and 
most authentic records of the human race ; that it is recognized by the 
codes of the most polished nations of antiquity ; that, under the light of 
Christianity itself the possession of persons so acquired has been, in 
every civihzed country, invested "with the character of property and se- 
cured as such by all the protection of law ; that solemn treaties have 
been framed and national monopolies eagerly sought to facilitate and 
extend the commerce in this asserted property ; and all this wth all the 
sanctions of law, pubhc aiid municipal, and without any opposition, ex- 
cept the protests of a feiv lyrivate moralists, little heard and less attended 
to in every country, till within these very few yeai-s, in this particular 
country^ 

This decree was delivered in 1817, more than a quarter of a century 
after the Constitution of the United States had been in complete opera- 
tion, and confirms all the principles of our political compact with our 
sister States on this subject. But the fi'ee soil States, with an inexpres- 
sible arrogance and fury, simply reply, that there can be no property in 
man ; Avhile the laws of God, l)oth in the Old and New Testament, the 
laws of all mankind, and the Constitution, falsify, in the most palpable 
manner, this their fundamental proposition. They say that there is a 
law above the Constitution ; that if the Sciiptures sustain the institution 
of slavery, they are a lie ; and the laws and practice of all nations and 
of all times, they do not even deign to notice. It is thus seen that no 
property is more distinctly and favorably recognized by all laws, human, 
divine, municipal and national ; that with us it is eminently a fundamen- 
tal and national institution. But this pretended law of Mexico, the 
mere fume of re\olutipnary anarchy, having no relation to or operation 
in California, in its conquered state, cannot invalidate all the sanctions 
which secure this propei'ty ; which, let it always be remembered, does 
not depend on the laws of particular States, but on the Coustitution and 
laws of the Union. The authority of the States, it is true, has been 
employed in some instances to prevent its entrance into them, and, 
I admit, has not been questioned ; but if it Avere a new and open ques- 
tion, it is difficult to see how it could be. sustained. I do not mean to 
contend that its retention in those States could not be prohibited ; but I 
am, perhaps, leaving the direct consideration of the question before us, 
which is the effect of the supposed law of Mexico on this property with- 
in this territory. The law of nations, giving a temporaiy and limited 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDO"N CHEVES. 9 

operation to such a law within tlie conquered territory, is only protec- 
tive of the conquered inhabitants, and there ends. It is a charitable 
limitation of the rights and power of the conqueror ; a mere limitation 
of unquestionable right and power. It has no pretension to control the 
rights and interests of the conqueror. There will not be found in all the 
libraries of the law, or in the narrations of historj", any pretension of 
that kind. The language of Burlamqui is : " Even were we to strip the 
\^anquished entirely of their independency, we may still leave them their 
own laws, customs and magistrates in regard to their public and jirivate 
aftairs of small hnimrtance,^'' and we may not ; and, in strictness, there 
is necessarily some positive act, express or tacit, to allow this operation, 
even this limited operation of the laws of the subdued people. Is there 
any doul)t but that in the fullness of the power of the conqueror, even 
this hmited operation of his power does not exist. / 

It only exists as a conservative ^''or, not a right. I confidently be- I, ^■/j^' i^%m 

lieve that no enlarged legal mind, caj^able of taking a comprehensive 
\'iew of national huv, would for a moment recognize the operation of 
this law on the security of the property of slaves carried into California 
l^efore it was admitted into the Union. But if it were admitted that 
this law would have the alleged operation, what would have been the 
duty of a just and paternal Government— a just Government, consulting 
and protecting all the rights of the people— of a Government such as a 
free people ought to consent to live imder and sustain ? Undoubtedly, 
to have immediately invalidated such a law. But so shadowy a pre- 
tence hasr been made an instrument to deny to almost half the nation the i^ 
fair employment of their property. . We need not ask why, because it is il 
audibly declared that the object is to destroy that property, to abolish U 
slavery, to fence the slave vStates around by what they call free States, I T^ 
and to imprison this population within limited bounds, so that its labor I 
may become unprofitable, the propei'ty less valuable, and its manage- | 
ment more (hfficult and hazardous, and thus to persecute the holders 
until they shall abandon it. 

It is unnecessary to enumerate more of the atrocities which are exhi- 
bited b}' this act of legerdemain, (the admission of California,) for it ^ 
would be a gross abuse of the language we sp,eak, to call it a regular- 
act of an established Government of modern civilized times. But the 
magic is as clumsy as it is wicked. It can deceive no one. It has nei- 
ther semblance nor reality. It would disgrace the wand-of Prospero. 

The hideous features, however, of this jiolitical deformity are nothing, 
when compared ^\ith the dangerous spirit which abides within it, and 
the motive which governs it. They are no less than the entire and 
speedy aboHtion of slavery. Now let any man contemplate the charac- 
ter and extent of this proposition. Language fails to portray it. None 
but a Northern fanatic, or a torpid Southron, can hear it uttered without 
a feeling of horror. Some idea of it may be gained by recalling the 
sufferings, the massacre and the banishment, in poverty and misery, of 
the white proprietors of Ilayti, and the present rule of his sable majes- 
ty, the Emperor Faustin the First. The beautiful and prolific South and 
South-west is to be desolated, its white inhabitants massacred, or flying 
from their abodes in beggary and miseiy, unsheltered from the pitiless 



10 SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 

storm, and wtliout tlie comforts or the subsistence of life. The country 
possessed by some Emperor, Ijearing and exulting- in the euplioneous 
title of, perhaps, Cufty the First. 

Such, or worse, if worse be possible, will be the inevitable — not pro- 
bable, but inevitable— eftects of our " glorious Union," in the hands of 
" les amis des noirs" an oiiiinous name, of which the very sound would 
seem to affright the Southern mind from its propriety, if it were not ab- 
solutely torpid. 

Nor let those of the South who have no direct interest in slave pro- 
perty, hug to their bosom the sweet imction that they can evade the 
common fate. Every Southern interest must perish with the slave insti- 
tution. Houses, lands, stocks, money at interest, must all be submitted 
to this late. These horrors have nothing appalling to the minds of fi'ee 
soilers. An appeal was made to the greatest man of this diabolical fra- 
ternity, a man now no more, but whose spirit still lives. He was told 
of these horrors, and particularly of the destruction of the masters. His 
reply wa.s : " Let them come, though five hundred thousand lives should 
perish." This is more diabolical than the declaration of some ISfarat or 
Robespieri-e, in the fury of the French Re\olution, who said : " Thou- 
sands of lives are a small sacrifice for the establishment of a principle." 
But it is said it is not intended to disturb the security of slave property 
in the established States. This is absolutely false. They have declared 
a thousand times that tlieir great end and aim is universal emancipation. 
Nor can they limit their ojiei'ations ; for, as John Randolph pithily said, 
fanaticism has no stopping place. It may not be the view of all the 
free soilers to bring about these calamities ; but tliey are sowing the 
tempest, and we must reap the storm which the moderaters will have no 
power to control. In fact, do they not all declare that their object is the 
utter abolition of slavery throughout the Union ? And if their views 
really went no further tlian to pen it up within restricted limits, do they 
not thereby disturb the security of the ]U'operty, when they render it 
less j)rofitable, less valuable, and more difficult of management. What 
their object is, aTid wha.t they believe they have already accomplished, is 
declared in tlie following extracts, taken from two public • journals of 
great circulation and authority. 

The New York Sun, a neutral paper, of larger circulation than any 
other journal in the United States, has the following, touching the recent 
acts passed by Congress : 

" Undoubtedly tliere will be clamor and clatter from the extreme and 
fanatic Southern members — it is to be expected — but the final result 
may ])e written down with certainty. Their decision [i. e. the acts 
joassed by Congress] loill be the doom of slavery in the United States. 
Its final suppression is near at hand, and may he looked ttpon as one of 
the most trimnjihant hattles ever fought and won, yet recwded in the 
world's history. It will have been a victory without bloodshed, a vic- 
tory of princi])le over halnt and association, of riyht over ivrong^ 

The opinion of a Northern pajier will not be weakened in its force by 
the following from the Li)ndon Times, a jtajier that can hardly be sup- 
posed to have any interested moti\'e in misrepresenting the true charac- 



SPEECH OF HOX. LANGDOX CHEVES. 



11 



ter and incnitable tendency of the nieasin-es of tlie late session. The 
Times says : 

" Slavcrj/ may, hi conseqimice of these measures, be considered as 
doomed in the United States, and men now living may see its utter ex- 
tinction within the ivhoU territories of the RepuhJic. An obstinate op- 
position (o this inevi fable tendency, on the part of the South, may delay, 
but cannot ultimately prevent this result. Another consequence may in- 
deed attend their opposition, iphich j^^ssibly their anycr and prejudice 
will not (dlow them to contemplated 

We sujipose by this is meant, the horrors of St. Domingo. 

The next great atrocity committed on the Constitution and the rights 
of the States, is the excision of the territory of the State of Texas. This 
is worse, in my judgment, than tlie aftair of Cahfornia. -The most sa- 
cred princi])le of' the constitution is the inviulabihty of the State sove- 
reignty. The constitution does not authorize- the smallest interferei*ce 
of tii'e <ieneral Go\Trnment, except, perliaps, in the vague clause which 
secures to each State a Repul)lican form of Government. _ A State may 
violate every article of the Constitution, and there is not m that instru- 
ment anv "power of interference granted to the General Goxernnient. 
If one State were to malvc war u]ion another, no right of interposition 
is gi\en to that Go^•ernment. Incidentally, through the judiciary, the 
practical exercise of State sovereignty msy be controlled ; but only 
where the rights of individuals are concerned, and the judgments of 
coui-ts are to be executed. In all cases which affect the sovereignty of 
States, their relation to the (General Goveinment is the same as be- 
tween two independent, equal sovereigns. This view may, perhaps, be 
considered as nev/. I am not aware that it is so. But be that as it 
may, the constitution may be searched in \ain for any thing in deroga- 
tion of it. It may be asked, what power then exists to control a State 
in the exercise of unjust power I The answer is, none, but that to Avhich 
all sovei-eigns are subject. Thank <iod ! Tlie framers of the Constitu- 
tion did not contemplate any control of the sovereign States. Nor can 
Congi-ess pass any law abridging this sovereignty. To prove to demon- 
stration how little power Congress has to acquire territory, it is only ne- 
cessary to quote the following section of the Constitution : 

,' The Congress shall ha\e power to dispose of, and make all needfid 
rules and reg'ulations respecting the territory or other projjerty belong- 
ing to the United States ; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so 
construed as to jmjudice any claims of the United States, or of any 
particular Slate.^' 

This &use proACS that the framers of the Constitution admitted no 
power in the go\ernment of the Union, e\en to make laws respecting 
" the acknowledged and indubitable territory and property of the iMiion 
without this s])ecial authority ; and the saving clause s<'ems to provide, 
with great, but just and wise jealously, against the })0ssible encroach- 
ments of the gmernment of the Union. After reading this clause, with 
what reason and propi-iety, can it be urged that Congress shall ucquire, 
of itself and under the Constitution, sovereign riglits over a conquered 
territory I Let any jirovision in the Constitution be ] ointed out in which 
there is even a squiiiting at such a power. If the t"rritory cut off from 



12 SPEECH OF HOX. LAXGDOX CHEVE^. 

Texas did uot belong to that State, it certainly did not belong to the 
political entity called the United State's, bnt to the independent States 
of the Confederacy, as independent States, ^xr mi et per tout. But 
though this argument cannot be refuted, it will be met mth the rebuke 
of power, and will be no stumbhng block in the way of those who are 
governed by a law above the Constitution. I shall speak of the right 
of Texas hereafter as an indubitable right. But sup])ose it to be doubt- 
ful, who shall decide the question of its valichty ? It is the right of a 
sovereign ; and Avhere shall we find any power in Cougi-ess to decide on 
questions of the sovereign power of the States ? Certainly not in the 
Constitntion of the Federal Government. In the President .' Unques- 
tionably so fearful and despotic a power is uot invested iu him. But 
who then shall decide ? I answer, it is a question of sovereign right, 
to be decided by equal sovereigns .by negotiation and agreement be- 
tween Texas and the other States. It never was intended to make the 
goverament of the Union an absolute despotic power to decide such 
controversies. It was a government granted ^ith fear and limited t>y 
jealousy. But to show how feebly such considerations govern the chief 
magistrate whom accident has put above us, how httle of a statesman 
and how poor a la^^"^"er he is, we tind him. by his mere will, superse- 
ding the authority of Congress, if it has any, deciding the question, and 
threatening to enforce a title thus adjudged, by arms. His authority to 
use military force is a (Question of sovereign right, he strangely finds iu 
a law most clearly intended only to enforce the execution of judicial 
judgments in personal and indi\"idual controvei-sies. 

Now as to the right and title of Texas. Texas claimed the territory 
under the Constitution of the State, as a conquered temtory. The Uni- 
ted States acknowledged the boundaries wliich she claims. The treaty 
of annexation was executed with a map of the country exhibiting these 
boundaries, made in the topograpliical bureau of the United States, lying 
before the negotiators at the time ; and the United States agTeed to use 
their power and intluence to establish these boundaries, as nearly as they 
could, in their negotiations \\-ith Mexico. I know it may be said that 
these bounrlaries were not ex])ressly recognized iu the treaty of annexa- 
tion ; but the reason for it was that the United States, while it recog- 
nized them tacitly, would not agree hkewise to guarantee them in ex- 
tenso. That the United States distinctly recognized them, is proved by 
the memoir attached to the map, which states that " the present boun- 
daries of Texas are defined by an act of the Texan CongTess, ajiproved 
December 19, 183B, to be as follows : — " Beginning at the mouth of the 
Rio Grande, thence up the prinpal stream of said river, to its source, 
thence due north to the 42d degree of Xorth Latitude ; thence along 
the bouuchiry fine, as detuied in the treaty between the United States 
and Spain, to the beginning." The reason for not expressing specially 
the boundaries of Texas, is given a letter of Mr. Calhoun, Secretary of 
State, to Mr. Green, our representative iu Mexico, dated 19th of April, 
1844, in which he says : — 

" To make the terms of the treaty (of annexation) as Uttle objection- 
able to Mexico as possible, the Government of the United States had 
left the boundary of Texas without specification, so that what the boun- 



SPEECH OF HOX. LAXGDOK CHE^^:S. 13 

dan" <bould })e, might l>e an open question, to be fairly and fully dis- 
cussed, and settled according to the rights of each, and the mutual in- 
terest and security of the two countries." 

Thus there is not the shadow of doubt that the Government of the 
United States recognized the boundary claimed, as the basis of the ne- 
gotiation on the part of Texas, in the stipulated negotiation with Mexico . 
Every act of our government until the expiiration of Mr. Polk's administra- 
tion confirmed this ; our aiTuy took possession of the bank of the Eio 
Grande as Texas territory, and when it was assailed, defended it as such. 
The President, in his message to Congress, called the advance of the 
Mexican army l)eyond the Rio Grande an invasion of our territory, that 
is, of the territory of I'exas. Congress, by a very large majority, de- 
clared war on that ground, and by that war the territor\- in question 
was defended as the territory" of Texas. It was acknowledged by Mex- 
ico bv a treaty of cession to the United States, the ostensible belligerent 
power and the trustee of Texas for the piu-pose. But the title of Texas 
was good, independent of this cession. K the tenitory in qiiestion was 
not actually a battle tield, the enemy retreated Ijeyond it, before the re- 
lease of Santa Anna ; by his order the Texans claimed it in the most 
solemn manner ; and actual possession has never been deemed necessary 
to support a title by nations to remote territoiy. Great Britain has not 
in actual possession, and never in any manner put toot on a great por- 
tion of the territory of her foreign dominions. So of Russia, and so of 
other Governments. The abandonment by Santa Anna and the officer 
next in command, supported by eight or nine years distinct and unaba- 
ted claim, is, in itself, sufficient. But the question is between the Uni- 
ted States and the State of Texas. Xow the United States have again 
and again, in every shape, acknowledged the boundary claimed by Tex- 
as, 1x)th before and after the war with Mexico ; and shall she be per- 
mitted to dispute it ' In the strictest law between individuals, the party 
standing in the place of the United States would be estopped fi-om ma- 
king a demand in opposition to the claim of the other party. To at- 
tempt it would be deemed a gross and infamous fraud ; can it be less 
so in a narion i The pretence is that it formed a part of the old 
province of Xew-Mexico ; but this was distinctly known to the United 
States anterior to all her acknowledgments of the title of Texas. Be- 
sides, the attempted usurpation is not confined to the territory formerly 
included in New Mexico, but is to embrace a large portion of the un- 
disputed territory of Texas ; and for this, no pretence of right is even 
su2:gested. no moti\ e is assigned, but the Government desires to have 
it. The motive is, nevertheless, perfectly obvious. It is to further the 
poHcy and plans of the Alx)Htionists. It is to environ the slave States. 
"We have seen that the Government of the I'nited States has no power 
to acquire territory. Let xis now look a httle into the means resorted 
to for the pm-jwse of accoraphshing this object. We see the military 
again emploved in fraudulent attempts to estabhsh another free soil 
State. Tliat faihng, the President, without consulting Congress, deter- 
mines the question of right most uncourteously, as well as without the 
shadow of authority in him to do so : threatens the use of the bavonet 
and through Congress offers a bribe to Texas : and vrith the sword in 



14 Si^EECH OF HON. LANGOON CHEVES. 

one hand and a briija in tlie other, dictates to a free and sovereign State 
the dismemberment of her territory, prescribes precise hmits to the ex- 
cision withont consultiny; . her, and fixes a very short time within wliich 
she is to submit. The <i,-reatest tyrant in the world could not have pro- 
ceeded with more indecency, or with grosser insult. Will Texas sub- 
mit ? Has she no self respect left ? Is she not pledged to the Southern 
States to preser\e this territory, for tTie purpose of sustaining the equi- 
librium of the Union ; and will she now consign it to a purpose which 
will destroy it ? Who brought Texas into the Union ? The South. 
Who expended their blood and treasure to sustain her independence 
and to defend her from the menaces of Mexico and the bloody revenge 
of that nation ? The South ; and Texas, for this paltry tribe, is to de- 
sert those who 8upporte<;l her in the hour of distress and peril, and to 
subserve the ambition and fanaticism of those who would have sacriticed 
her ; she, an independent State, is to submit to the dictates, the fanati- 
cism and the ambition of her own worst enemies, to give up her lands 
to a vast extent, and her natural boundaries and her honor. No State 
in the Union, with so short a history, is entitled to a more l:)rilliant 
fame. But let her submit to this insulting and degrading dictation, to 
use no harsher term, and where will she stand ? This assault upon 
Texas is, at the same time, a deadly blow at all independent State sove- 
reignty ; and without that safeguard, there cannot be conceived a grea- 
■ tei" despotism than the government of the United States is likely to be- 
come. Indeed it is so already, if the views I have pi'esented have any 
foundation in truth. But in the case of Texas, as in that of California, 
the great deed of iniquity is the object and the ultimate tendency and 
effect of the measure. Is it not avowed that the purpose ^i it is to en- 
viron the slave States witli institutions at war with the security and va- 
lue of tlie property of those States, as well as the destruction of the 
power of those States in the confederacy ? To humble you, to govern 
you, to stab you to the heart ? I dismiss the subject of Texas. 
^ The next aggression is the abolition of the sla\e trade in th' District 

■^ of Columbia ; and this will be, perhaps, a question of constitutional 

difficulty with some minds. It Avould seem, however, if the constitution 
is to be construed like other instruments, that the law is constitutionally 
unauthorized. The territory belongs to all the States ; and all the citi- 
zens of all the States have a right to bring their property into it, and to 
use it therein for all the purposes of which property is susceptible. It 
will not be asserted that Congi'css has the power to prohibit the intro- 
duction, within thQ District, of the manufactures of Massachusetts, or. the 
' cotton and rice of the Southern States. Now it cannot be averred with 
truth that there is any property more sacred, or better protected under 
the Constitution', than the projjerty in our slaves. The Constitution is 
imbued with none of those prejudices against this pvopcity, which have 
grown up entirely since its adoption, as well in p]urope as in some of 
the United States. How, then, can it be pretended that the owner of 
this property shall be precluded from the use of it in the leading cha- 
racteristic of all property, namely ; the sale of it ? Certainly, I would 
say that prejudice and not reason, can make any distinction. I)Ut in 
discussing the constitutionality of the law, we do not meet the great 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 15 

ground of objection, wliicli is the purpose and example of the law. 
Here, as in the preceding grievances, the object is the advancement of ^ 
abolition. Is it not notorious that it is intended and valued nierely as 
an entering wedge, that it is to be followed up by the abolition of the 
property in the District, and that these acts shall form examples for 
other acts of inteiference "\^^th this property ? Congress ha.s the power 
to regulate commerce between the States. We shall no doubt very, 
soon hear of a proposition in CongTess for regulating the slave trade 
between the States ; and the surplus slaves of Virginia and North-Caro- 
lina, will not be allowed to pass to the new and unsettled country of 
the South and Southwest ; or they will couple the transit of slaves ^vith 
with conditions which will secure their emancipation in the States to 
which they shall be transported. It is vain to say that such jneasures ^ 
will be unconstitutional. Neither fanaticism nor power can be restrain- 
ed by the privileges of a Constitution in parchment. It has been al- 
ready repeated^ trampled upon, -and a total disregard of it has been 
openly avowed by the leading actors in the prevaihng crusade iigainst 
slavery. 

Tlie next cause of complaint, and of danger and alarm, is that the , 
balance of the Government is destroyed forever ; and it is beyond the 
power of our opponents themselves to restore it, if theA' had the wsh 
to do so. The admission of California into the Union gives them a 
decided majority in the Senate, and they have long had a u^gority in 
the House of Representatives. Then- majority in the first wllbe spee- 
(hly increased by the admission of new States, from which slavery will 
be excluded ; the last needs no increase to give them overwhelming- 
power. But besides the natural increase of their present excess of num- 
bers, the introduction of foreigners will add to it, perhaps a quarter of a 
miUion per annum. Thus they grow stronger and stronger every day, 
and the South, proportionally, weaker. It is as certain as it would be 
if we had a declaration fi-om Heaven, that there ne\er will be another 
slave State admitted into the Union. It is equally certain that the over- 
whelming power of our opponents will be exercised most despotically. 
The spirit by which they are urged on is twofold : first the ambition of 
low-minded pohticians, who are determined to govern and to crush all 
power in the Southern States. They are go\erne<i l)y an ancient hatred 
that has come down to them from the old federal party, but without 
the talent or lu-banity of that party. That party was put down by the 
Union of the South and Southwest, and have borne with great restive- ^ 
ness their jibsencc from power. But they were men of great talents 
and accomplislnnents, lit to govern. These are , now cast off by their 
successors, ^who have none of their high eciuahties — men known to the 
nation by no distinction of talent or public service, the Hales, the Gid- 
dings, the Sewards — these are the brood of the second element of the 
now dominant party, fanaticism. They are generated from the slime of 
this foul principle : imless you resist, you are to be governed by it. 
You are absolutely powerless. No t}Tant has ever existed whose power 
to do evil was so great, whose disposition to do good so small — a popu- 
lar tyranny of fanatics and low-minded politicians, a tyranny much the 
worse, because it is many-lieaded. A populai' tyraimy (even when com- 



16 SPEECH OF nOX. LAXGDOX CHEVES. 

posed 01 less foul elements,) is more deVjasing than the tyranny of a 
monarch ; in its appetites more inappeasible and gross, and in its dura- 
tion more lasting. It never dies. The gloomy expanse of time Svhich 
it covers is never irradiated by a Trajan or an Antoninus. There is an 
eternal duration of its vicioiis qualities and its rapacious reign. Good 
God I Is the proud Southern to bow in submission to such a govern- 
ment ! AMiere is the race of om- great men ? But under the influence 
of tlie benumbing government which is called our " glorious Union," 
you have ceased to produce gr^at men. A^Tiere are the Jeffersons, the 
Madisons, the Henrys, and the George Masons of Virginia ; the Rut- 
ledges and the Pinckneys of South-Carolina ; the James Jacksons and 
the WiUiam H. Crawfovds of Georgia ? Gone ! gone ! and none to take 
their place ; none to rouse us to manly resistance against the injustice 
. and the tj-ranny under T>'hich we suffer. 'No ! It cannot be ; there are 
4 such men, if the people viiW call them forth. The people ynust take the 
subject into their ou'n hands. They must no longer look to their na- 
tional politicians, who ha\'e inhaled the pestilential air of Washing-ton. 
They must throw off national party names, -s^hose little factious politics 
have been put above their country's cause. There must be neither De- 
mocrats nor "\Miig's ; but we must aU be Southern men. AYe should 
have, if possible, nothing to do with the General Government. We 
ha\e, there, no longer a particle of practical power. Our own Repre- 
sentativH^have betrayed us. I admit that there are highly honorable 
exceptions ; but we ha^•e been shamefully betrayed by many of them. 
Without that aid which they afforded the enemy, the sad residts which 
Ave deplore could not have been accomphshed. Our presence in the 
Halls of Legislation gives to our enemy the countenace of forms which 
once embodied the spirit of a vigorous freedom ; which gave us oiu" 
share of power, our share of respect, a standing of equahty in the na- 
tion. But under the present operation of the Government, these are all 
extinguished. Our o«ti Representatives have told us that what our en- 
emies were pleased to grant us we ought to take, because we could get 
no more. I should be glad to be informed what they have left us. Have 
they not taken all ? The gn-eat matter in contest, when the recent con- 
troversies began, was about the territory which we had conquered from 
Mexico. I say, which we, of the South, had conquered ; for our oppo- 
nents were opposed to the war, opposed to the appropriations, and their 
section contributed only a few noble spirits who rose above their low 
aspirations. Have they not taken all ? iThe only thing granted to us 
, was a law to restore to us our fugitive slaves, which it was never sup- 
posed could be executed, and which we are now abundantly assured, 
they will not suffer to be executed. Nor was this a grant of any thing, 
for we had the right before, and the recent law was only an efibrt to 
counteract their bad faith in the execution of the constitutional provi- 
sions. They have not, however, been satisfied v\ith taking all. They 
have made that all a bricked instnmient for the abohtion of the Consti- 
tution, and of every safeguard of our property and our lives. Our dan- 
ger is well expressed by a member from ^lassachusetts, in a former 
CongTess, when the subject of slavery was incidentally agitated, who 



SPEECH OF HOX. LANGDOX CHEVES. 17 

said : '' It was not A^itli them (the South) a question of policy, of jpo- ^ 
Utical power, but of safety, peace, existence.^'' 

I have said they have made the appropriation of this territory an in- 
strument to aboUsh the Constitution. There is no doubt that they have 
abohshed the Constitution. The carcass may remain, but the spirit has 
left it. It is now .a f?tid mass, generating disease and death. It stinks 
in our nostrils. The Constitution when we entered into the compact of 
Union, was a well balanced scheme of government, securing the rights ^ 
of all parts of the Union; a Government of equal rights and equal 
powers. What is it now, and what is it to be in the hands of our op- 
ponents in future ? Have we any power ? Shall we not certainly be 
bereft of even the semblance of it, when Xew Mexico, Utah, Minesota, 
and a dozen other States excluding slavery, shall be admitted into the 
Union, and no slave State be allowed to enter it ? The parchment on 
which the Constitution is written may remain ; the forms may remain, 
as a delusion to mankind, as the cover of tyrannical acts destructive of 
Southern rights, safety, honor and peace ; but there will be no Consti- 
tution securing these objects. The abuses of the name and forms of the 
Constitution has been already seen. We have been told, and even by 
Representati\-es of the South, that Congress, in all the atrocities that 
characterized the late session, has not violated the Constitution. What 
do those who thus speak, mean ? In their sense the Constitution of the 
Roman commonwealth was not nolated by the Roman Emperoi-s. The 
forms of the commonwealth were preserved for ages after the Republic 
had ceased to exist. According to these acute reasoners, the Constitu- 
tion of free Rome was not violated when Caligula made his horse a 
Roman Consul. 

A Constitution means, ex vi termini, a guaranty of the rights, liberty 
and security of a free people, and can never survive in the shape of dead 
formahties. It is a thing of life, and just and fair proportions ; not the 
caput mortuum which the so called Constitution of the United States 
has now become. Is there a Southern man who bears a soul within 
his ribs, who will consent to be governed by this vulgar tyi-anny ; by 
the Hales, the Giddings, and the Sewards \ Will the high-toned Vir- 
ginian submit to it I Xo one who is a genuine son of the Old Domin- 
ion will submit to be governed by it. 

I shaU enumerate no more of the ^vi-ongs that we have suffered, or 
the dangers with which we are threatened. If these, so enormous and 
atrocious, are not sufficient to arouse the Southern mind, our case is 
desperate. But supposing that we shall he roused, and that we shall 
act like freemen, and knowing our rights and our \sTongs, shall be pre- 
pared to sustain the one and redress the other — what is the remedv ? 
I answer : secession — united secession of the slaveholding States, or a 
large number of them. Nothing else will be mse — nothing else will be 
practicable. The Rubicon is passed — the U^ion is already dissolved ? 
W^hat was the Union ? A government wisely and practically balanced — .^ 
balanced by a distribution of power which protected all interests and 
all sections of the country. All power is now vested in the people of 
one section. Property, in one section, is no longer protected ; on the 
contrary, the most \ioIant war is made upon it. That Union secured the 
2 



18 SPEECH OF HON. LAXGDON CHEVES. 

peace of the comraiuiitj' ; now it puts that peace in the utmost danger, 
and threatens one section of the country with the direst calamities that 
humanity can suffer. That Union was a bond of fraternity, of mutual 
■^ o-ood feeling ; now^ it is one of bitter hostility. Would not a free peo- 
ple be absolutely besotted, who should contract an alhance, or cherish a 
union, with a hostile people, and give all power to thajt people to govern 
them, to tyrannize over them, to bind them hand and foot ? Is not that 
the relation in which the people of the South stand to the people of the 
non-slaveholdiug States ? Can any one deny it ? Cany any change for 
the better be hoped for ? Can yo'u expect to live in harmony with a 
people who, in every form that can be conceived, on the floor of the 
National Legislative Halls ; in then- own Legislature ; in their Clerical 
i Synods, declare slavery to be a crime, and the holders of the property 
to be criminals ? Who declare their utmost detestation of you ; who 
refuse to join with. you in works of humanity, mercy and piety ? To 
those people you are in the strictest bonds ; and yet deliberate whether 
you will break asunder the manacles which bind you. Brute nature will 
not bear a galling chain without an effort to rend it ; but man, a being 
of wise discretion, looking before and after, hugs it to his bosom, and 
lets it sink into and corrode his flesh, when a single manly effort would 
crush it hke a cob-web. Have you any self-respect ? Can any people 
be great or happy, or virtuous without it ? Can you hve with this peo- 
ple, and continue"^ in this Union, and retain this virtue ? Is not the face 
of every Southern man already suffused with the blush of shame ? 

I have asked if there be any hope of a fevorable change. All change 
will be a mockerv which shall not give 3'ou an equality of power ; and 
will that be granted you ? The great sacrifices which they have made 
of truth, honor, fraternity, and the Constitution, to accomplish their 
usurpation, were not made for a fruitless result. Far from it, they are 
anxious to wade deeper in. Nor need this disposition be proved by ar- 
gument. They boldly avow it, zealously proclaim it, glory in their past 
triumph, and urge on the dogs of war to future havoc. No change 
whate\er, except to enlarge their power and increase our shame, danger 
. and disgrace, can the future bring forth — yet we deliberate. She pusil- 
lanimovTs inquiry is daily made, what can we do ? What cannot mil- 
lions of freemen, not indifferent to their rights, not unsconcious of their 
wrongs, and not insensible to shame, do in asserting their rights and 
repelhng the injuries which they suffer ? They can do any thing they 
dare to will. What are the causes of this ignominious inquiry, of the 
apathy we exMbit, of the torpor we suffer. The principal causes are, 
\ fii-st, the overgrown unconstitutional power, patronage and influence of 
the government of the Union ; and, secondly, mistaken conceptions of 
the character and value of the Union. 

The direct Constitutional power granted to the Union, except in the 
regulation of commerce aad the management of our foreign relations, 
we have seen, was very small, but it is now overwhelming. It has pros- 
trated what was intended as the great safeguard of the people — the 
power of the independent States. It has corrupted the public senti- 
ment, it has withdrawn the fidelity of the innnediate agents of the peo- 
ple and the States. It has ofiered its blandishments of othce, its pecu- 



SPEECH OF HON. LAXGDON" CHEVES. 19 

niary rewards. Aml)itions men, looking to the chief magistracy, are 
seen arra}"iug arouud them personal factious ; others aspire to the bench 
of justice ; othei"s to be ambassadors or consuls. Others are looking to 
the legislative halls as the most distinguished scene in which to exhibit 
their talents and prostitute their votes to procure advancement. Others 
are seeking to be collectoi-s of the customs. ^Mio has been recently ap- 
pointed collector of the customs at San Francisco ? Xo doubt a disin- 
terested pati'iot, and a safe guartlian of the rights, and interests, and 
honor, and character of the State of Georgia. Xo office, even down to 
the humble one of Tide-waiter, is without its temptations. The simple 
Governments of the States offer no competition. It is deemed a proof 
of low ambition to aspire to the highest of their offices. There is no 
hmit to these temptations. There is the vast e?vpenditure of the Go- 
vernment of the Union ; seventy milhons appropriated in one session ; 
claims on the go\ernmeut to immense amounts, long forgotten or de- 
clared to be unfounded, paid with half a century of interest and com- 
pound interest. The \irtue mast be very stern that can resist these 
temptations. The jiatronage of all governments is known to be an in- 
strument of corruption, to sustain the men Avho administer them and 
their measures, right or wrong. The unclean pickings of Uncle Sam's 
treasure box are more profitable than the mines of California. The 
mileage of a member of Congi-ess is in some instances not less than 
$4000 a single session. Can any ^•irtue resist this beneficence ? It is 
true this comes out of the peoples' j^ockets, but it is received from the 
hands of the government. 

The nature and influence of the esprit de corps, which is as much a 
thing of life as the animal spuits of the human body, is very well known 
and undei"stood. Xo man, good or bad, can resist its influence ; it is a 
part of their political entity. Those who belong to the government 
must support the go\ernment, as the human being would cherish his 
health. The trustees and representatives of the absent people of the 
States forget that the government of wliich they form a part is only 
the creature of their constituents, and they serve, not them, but it. 

Pohtical parties gTow up imder all free governments. I dare not 
condemn them : such a government would not long exist ^\ithout them ; 
they are necessary to cherish the principles of freedom and defend the 
rights of the people. But they are frequently the instruments of great 
evil, and destructive of the very purposes and interests, which they pro- 
fess to subserN'e, and sometimes without any corrupt motive or inten- 
tions. 

Political parties under that esjrrit de corps of which I have spoken, 
each to their own party adhere vrith. a devotion which supei'sedes and 
confounds the best reason of the best and ablest men. The Big-endians 
and the Little-endians contend as zealously, and as furiouslv, each for 
their own opinion, that the egg should be broken at a particular end, 
as if the contention were for a principle of eternal truth, and sometimes 
against the principles of eternal truth. Xow our })arties under the go- 
vernment of the union are altogether national parties and have superse- 
ded all other political parties. They are alien to the political piinciples 
of the States, and dangerous to them when the States and the Govern- 



IX 



20 SPEECH OF HON. LANGDOX CIIEVES. 

meiit of the Union are at variance. Let us drop our party distinctions 
while contending for the i-ights, interests and independence of our bleed- 
ing country. Let us all be Southern men, Avhile these gTeat questions 
are pending. How can we be other^vise ? Is there a man in this as- 
sembly who will not admit that those who hold all power at this time 
under' the Government of the Union, intend to use that power to sub- 
vert the institution of slavery, on which all other Southern interests 
hang, our peace, our hves, our liouor, and th^ whole wide spread soil of 
the South, reckless of the miseries that will follow ? Can there be a 
man, then, in this assembly, who is not disposed at any and every ha- 
zard, to resist this nefarious and barbarous attempt ? The only ques- 
tion is what shall be the mode and measure of resistance. I have said 
V secession is the only practical remedy. We have seen that there is not 
the slightest hope of any remission of the efforts of our opponents to 
destroy us. Non-consumption of Northern manufactures has been men- 
tioned ; but this would be only nibbling at the subject ; a mode unwor- 
thy of the subject and of independent States ; and all eflective resist- 
ance must be the work of the independent States in a united effort. 
This mode contemplates our remaining in the Union under a govern- 
ment which can pass what laws it shall please, which can shut our ports, 
if they please, until we renounce our petty resistance. Under the pro- 
tection of that government, the commodities of the North will be poured 
into the Southern States, and put a temptation before the peoi^le, which 
ought not to be put in their way. Non-consumption was tried before 
the' war of independence ; but while it may have exhibited proofs of 
indi\-idual patriotism, I am not aware that it did any thing more ; nor 
will it now, if adopted by us. It will subdue the spirit of the people, 
and bring it down from that of great national resistance, to an exliibi- 
tion of tins little war of sriite. Our opponents have been emboldened 
to act as they have done, by a belief that we cannot be kicked into na- 
tional resistance. No ! If "we cannot resist as a nation, we ai-e subdued 
as a nation. In the mean time, we- shall do nothing while the enemy 
will be providing for our subjugation. The delay will be dangerous. I 
say, with Lord Bacon, " It were better to meet some dangers half way, 
though they come nothing near, than to keep too long a watch upon 
their approaches ; for if a man watch too long, it is odds he will 
fall asleep." I fear we have already watched too long, and are fallen 
asleep. 

Is it the fear of our inability to resist, or our love and value of the 
LTnion, that makes us doubt and hesitate, or is the measure of insult 
and injury under which we suffer not yet full ? Of the value of the 
Union I shall speak hereafter. If there is any one who thinks that the 
"^ measure of our injuries and insults is not full, I will not reason with 
him, but leave him to wait for that last kick, which the witty Sydney 
Smith has said, will make even the kicked resist. I ^^^ll now speak of 
om- abihty to resist by secession, should it be opposed. If Virginia 
shall lead," I have not the least aj^prehension that any blood will be 
spilt. In that case, I take it to be morally certain that, at least, North- 
Carolina, Tennessee, South-Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Flo- 
rida, Mississippi and Texas will immediately unite with her, and, in a 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 21 

little time, e\eiy other slaveliolding State will join them, except, perhaps, 
Delaware, because it will be their interest to do so. If Virginia shall 
submit, which it seems imj ossible to beheve, the want of unanimity may- 
embolden the government to try coercion. The power of the government 
of the United States to subdue any two or three considerable States, seems 
out of the question. It is hard to subdue a free people. The difficulties 
of the government of the Union, in accomplishing that object, will be 
found to be insurmountable. The expense will be enormous. Its revenue 
will be destroyed ; its commerce will be subject to capture by our pri\ateers. 
Our cotton, rice and tobacco will be carried in British and other foreign 
vessels. Our supplies will come to us by the same channels. Their 
manufacturei-s will find no market, or a bad one. If they attempt to 
invade us, where is their army ? They will not get a man from any of 
the slave States. If they draft the militia from their own territories, 
think of the expense and delay of their equipment, of their transporta- 
tion, of the eftect of our chmate upon them. Nor is it probable that 
even their own militia \\ill serve with zeal in such a cause. Is it certain 
that their army and navy viill obey them I They are not abolitionists. 
If they shall deem it necessary to borrow money, will capitalists lend 
it? They must pa}^ the interest on the national debt, provide for 
the payment of the immense expenses of government, wliich, under 
their rule, have been greatly increased, with a war expenditure of im- 
measurable extent added to them. Where will the revenue come from, 
when they can no longer put their hands into the pockets of the South ? 
They cannot injure us Ijy sea, for the " glorious Union " has given them 
a monopoly of the commerce of the country. 

A^^ill they blockade our ports ? Foreign nations, who want our raw 
produce for their manufactures, will not suffer it. Will they take oiur 
seaport towns ? All the naval and land forces they shall be enabled to 
emj'loy will find it difficult to take Charleston or Savannah ; and, if 
taken, ^\hat would they do with them ? If they advance into the coun- 
try, they will probably be defeated. If they conquer, can they hold the 
smallest State in the confederacy subject to their dominion for six mouths ? 
They have been computing the bill they will have to pay without their 
host. Oh ! but their fiieuds, the slaves, will fight their battles. Will 
they ? They will really add to our strenglh. They will build our for- 
tificatious — they will till our fields — while their masters are in arms, and 
they could be made, without hazard to our safety, even to aid us in bat- 
tle, were aid wanted ; but it will not be. We want but union among 
ourselves, and " the enemy are oui-s." ^^"hen this w'ar is ended, what 
will be the result ? This Union will be, thank God, forever at an end. 
W^e ought not, and cannot, five in union with abolitionists, or men of 
mean but ferocious amljition, who are determined to be our governors 
and task-masters. But we shall be willing to live with them as breth- 
ren, in peace, with commercial arrangements, and even in a national 
confederacy, like that which preceded the Union. They will desire, and 
we ought to grant it. They will not, then, encourage oiu' slaves to de- 
sert, and they will restore them with alacrity if the) fly to them. They 
will no longer talk of trial by jury, and habeas corpus, but of the dan- 
ger of violating stipulations, the execution of which it will be to their 
interest to enforce. 



22 SPEECH OF HOX. LAXGDON CHEVES. 

In sueli a contest, gliould it take place, shall the South not sutler ? 
Undoubtedly it will sutler some of the casualties of war. It would be 
a fraud on the people to hold a dift'erent language. It is a case in which 
they are called upon to meet some of the dangers of war, as all free 
people must sometimes do, to preserve their rights ; as all nations must 
sometimes do, to sustain their honour, and cause themselves to be re- 
spected — dangers which all people, not prepared to submit their necks 
to the yoke of a master, must be prepared to meet with zeal and alacri- 

> ty. llie people willingly encountered the dangers of the w\ar of inde- 
pendence ; yet there is no comparison between the grievances w^e then 
complained of, and those we now suiter. AVe then complained of a 
small tax, unconstitutionally imposed. Every other interest of the colo- 
nies was cherished, and the tax itself was not unreasonable Our resist- 
ance was merely liecause it was unconstitutionally imposed ; but it would 
have been unworthy of freemen to have submitted to it. 

We made war with Great Britain in 1812 — and it was made by 

vi Southern men — merely to sustain the honour of the country, and we 
encountered the dangers of war. We do not regret it. We were, be- 
fore, the most degraded people in the world, despised for our pusillani- 
mity. We came out of it with a character which has ever since bee'n 
our sword and our shield. We preceded that war by nibbhng at the 
subject, by restrictive measures and embargoes ; but they did no good. 
We only received more kicks, and became more despised. The enemy 
then said that we could not be kicked into a war, as the abolitionists 
now say that we cannot be kicked into secession or resistance. The 
language then was, we cannot make war ; as the language now is, of the 
pusillanimous, we cannot resist. Our ahihty to resist is much gTeater 
now than was our'ability to make war then. The dangers of war then 
were much more alanning than they are in the present case, and the 
I cause of resistance then was, to Southern men, w^ho made the war, al- 
most an abstraction, so far as Southern rights were concerned, when 
compared with the dire reahty that now affiicts and threatens to crush 

'. lis. It was, indeed, deeply a question of national honour, for which we 
fought in the late war with (treat Britain. It is so now ; bat besides, it 

^ is a question of life and death, morally, pohtically and iiliysically. "We 
must do or die." 

The right of peaceable secession, on our })art, is uneqiiivocal, if the 
equity ot^the case be considered. The Constitution of the Union is 
\ nothing more than a grave and solemn treaty between the States who 
were i>arties to it. The violation of one part of it annuls tTie whole ; 
and, as Lhat violation, on the part of our opponents, is most unquestionable, 
the South is exonerated and the treaty null. The name is nothing : all 
compacts between sovereigns are treaties. But, as between sovereigns 
there is no umpire, the State from which we secede may, however ca- 
priciously and unjustly, say we have \-iolated the compact by secession, 
and make war upon us. No such war, as I have shown, is authorized 
by the Constitution. I have shown how little sovereign power is em-, 
braced in the general grants of the Constitution ; that it required a special 
grant of power to dispose of the public territory of the Union. The great 
body of the internal sovereignty, which may be said to constitute the 
rearsovereignty of a nation, remains with the States. Any contest which 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 



23 



may arise will be between equal sovereigns, namely : the several States, 
thouo-li it may be conducted, on one side, under the constitutional name 
of the Union ; but this will in no wise alter the nature of the question. 

Treason has been mentioned, unfortunately and strangely, if it refers to 
the action of the States, But such language is mere brut am fulmen. 
Any one who has advanced beyond the hornbook of national politics, 
knows that every people, or any great body of people, whether the 
whole of a nation or not, with arms" in their hands, are not to be called 
traitors, or treated as such. If he dot?s not, a single page, of any writer 
of character, on the laws of war, Vattel, for example, will supply him 
with the necessary information. The idea and the language belong to 
ages of barbarism long gone by. Modern humanity and modern civih- 
zation have long repudiated both. In the war of the devolution, though 
we were undoubtedly warring against a former allegiance, were our citi- 
zens, when taken in arms, treated as traitors ? On the contrary, were 
they not regularly exchanged, as prisoners of war ? 

But if our great parent" State lead us, theue will be no bloodshed ; 
and can it be ' doubted that she will \ Virginia is the mother of the 
Southern States. There is scarcely a family within their bounds in ^ 
whose veins Virginia blood does not'ruu. Will she abandon them ? If 
they were to be engaged, even in a struggle of doubtful right, would 
she abandon them^ But, as they will resist a most atrocious injustice, 
an odious and alarniing tyranny,, under which she, alike with them, suf- 
fers, must she not join them ? "^It is the cause of Virginia herself. Does 
she not blush with shame at the cond'tion in which she is placed ? Ima- 
gine a sou of the old dominion bowing with awe, (as in the last Con- 
gress,) and meanly supplicating for the best he could get ! .Time was ^ 
when his language would have been : "My rights, my whole rights, and 
nothing less ;'" and when he would have said, " I would as lief not be, 
as live'to be in awe of such a thing as I myself." Has she not declared 
solemnly, by her legislative acts, that the existing usurpation ought not 
to be boi-ne ? Let it be unresisted ; let the abolitionists be permitted -to 
use that usurpation, with the temper and spirit that governs them, and 
what will be the fate of Virginia 'I How much better will it be than 
that of St. Domingo ? Let it not be supposed— which it will be th«' ^ 
most egregious folly to suppose — that the abolitionists will stop where they 
are, and use, ^vithout extreme violence, the poAver they possess. They 
will bmd us with new fetters, new freesoil States, and exclude forever 
all States with slave property, contrary to, the letter and spirit of the 
Constitution. Will that glorious old St;tte, will her magnanimous sons, 
the descendants of the men of 1 '7 7 6 and 1798, hug the security of an 
insignificant existence, and consent to be governed, like slaves, by the 
vulgar ambition of the Sewards, the Hales and the Giddingses ? If she 
shaTl do so, we shall weep o\er her ignominy ; and we wish her no harm 
when we say, may she perish rather. I love and honour Virginia. Half 
the blood that runs in my veins I draw from her, and_ I shall deeply 
lament her recreancy. Oii the contrary, what a destiny is open to her ? 
To be at the head of one of the most "glorious confederacies the world 
ever beheld, of her own blood, "bone of her bone and flesh of her 
flfesh ;" to rescue herself and all the Southern States fi-om an ignomi- 



24 SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 

nioiis bondage ; to illustrate by greater brilliancy her former glories ; to 
rescue from sterility the most fertile territories, the most felicitous in soil 
and cHmate, the happiest in position, the richest and most various in 
productions, that the world, in any given space, can display, watered by 
the most splendid river on earth, which this confederacy will enjoy and 
command. She has her choice, to be great or insignificant. She has 
her choice, l^etween generations of renown, or ages of mean vassalage. 
If this be true, V^irginia will head the confederacy. Will not Kentucky, 
reflecting all her noble featiu-es, the* greatest and dearest of her oftspring, 
follow her ? Or will this great State, in base submission to alien usurp- 
ers, meanly follow in their servile train ? It is impossible. We shall 
be united. We shall be one and indivisible. We shall live free and 
great, the pride and blessing of our posterity, for a hundred generations. 

The political and pecuniary interests of these States coincide. The 
slaves of Virginia may be estimated at little if any thing less than two 
hundred milhons of dollars, and those of Kentucky and Tennessee at 
one hundred millions each. The object of our opponents is to extin- 
guish this vast amount of the capital of these States, and leave in its 
place the curse of a million of lazy, vicious vagabonds, whom the States 
will have to maintain in their almshouses and jails, until they perish 
under their vices. The pulilic mind has been much agitated by the 
subject of manufactures, and the allegation of the vastness of the amount 
of capital in\ested. The great article is the cotton manufocture. 

The welkin has rung with calls for protection of the capital so 
invested. The pros]ierity of the country has been said to depend on its 
support. Now, will it not excite surprise to find that, by the statistical 
returns of 1840, the whole amount of capital thus invested was fifty-one 
milHons of dollars ? that of Massachusetts, thus invested, seventeen mil- 
lions of dollars ? These are very important sums, and may aflect mate- 
rially the prosperity of the country. The whole amount, however, is 
but about one-eighth part of the value of the slave property of the 
three States just mentioned, of the destruction of which our opjionents, 
and even our timid friends, speak \^^th the utmost coolness. Why, the 
destruction of four hundred millions of slave property, independent of 
the chaotic rupture of the habits of industry in these States, which it 
will take a quarter of a century to re-settle, Avill not be re-established in 
fifty 3'ears more. The laigest debt ever due by the nation did not 
amount to more than half the value of these slaves ; and, whatever may 
be wantonly said to the contrary, the destruction of no eqiuil amount of 
the capital of these States, in aity other shajie, would afi'ect their ha})pi- 
ness and pirosperity so Aitally. 

W^e now come to the question of the Ufligii — what it ^vas, and what 
it is — and its value to the Southern States. 

The establishment uf the Union, on the part of the Southevn States^ 
was a fraternal act. The States had just established, by a glorious ef- 
fort, coupled with much suffering, their independence. An enthusiasm 
of joy was the common sentiment of the nation at large. It was the 
first outbreak of the liberty of a large portion of the human race. We 
took to our bosolns, with brotherly affection, all those with whom we 
had struggled in the attainment of this great achievement. Their int^- 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 25 

rests, however variant, the South considered as her own. The country 
was poor ; but the Northern States Avere the poorest. Then- commerce 
was strugg-lhig, disadvantageously, with that of foreign nations. It 
needed to be cherished and protected by the Union. The north-western 
ports were still in possession of their late enemy, and were withheld, 
contrary to the stipulations of the treaty of peace ; they were not likely 
to be surrendered to sectional claims. The Union made the claim im- 
posing, and it was successful. It protected their navigation on the ocean. 
It cherished their fisheries by bounties. It gave them, by countervailing 
duties, almost the whole of our carrying trade. It gave them all that 
made them speedily prosperous and wealthy. What did it give to the 
South ? I am aware of nothing ; except, perhaps, harmony among 
, ourselves, which was, I admit, of some value ; but, while we gained but 
little, we did not begrudge all these advantages to our brethren, which, 
though they made them rich, did not impoverish us. We were all 
prosperous. The prosperity of the North sprung from the institutions 
of the Union ; ours from our soil, from our agriculture, fi'om our slave 
labour, and our cotton-tields. We needed no protection, and got none, 
from the Union. But too many of us have supposed that the manna 
which thus fell from heaven was the fruit of the Union, and have given 
it credit for the blessing. 

The poHtical fabric of the Union gave us a fair participation of power, 
to protect us in our respective rights and independence, which it would 
have continued to do had the compact been fairly executed. It was a 
well balanced government. Reflect on what it was and on what it is. 
" Look on this picture, and on that," and say whether it be not " Hype- 
rion to a Satyr." We had then equal power, w^e have now none at all. 
We asked nothing, and we gained nothing, Init that power of protecting 
ourselves, which is inlierent in all free governments ; for, without it, a 
government cannot be free, and will inevitably soon become a tyranny. 
There was, indeed, one subject on which we had a little jealousy, and for 
which prudence required some special guai-antees. All we desired was 
readily granted ; enough then, and enough now, if faithfully executed ; 
I refer to our slave property. The Constitution contains the most solemn 
pledges for its security ; but they have been repudiated by those who 
gave them. There was, then, but one opinion in the world on the sub- 
ject of slavery. It was not till a few years since, and then only in Great 
Britain, according to Lord Stowell, that " a feAV private moraUsts, little 
heard and less attended to," raised their voices against it ; not, indeed, 
against slavery, but the slave trade. The present crusade against slavery 
is of the most recent date, and is of foreign origin. As long as the 
Constitution permitted, those who are now waging so furious a war of 
abolition Avere engaged actively, profitably and largely in that abomina- 
ble trafBc, and are now employing the wages of it for the destruction of 
that property for Avhich Ave paid them. They are very subtle moralists, 
but cannot keep their skirts clear of the most odious part of the sin. 
We cannot enter here into a defence of sla\ery as it exists in the South- 
ern States at this time. African slavery, as Avell as the impassive barba- 
rism of Africa, are altogether a mystery, Avhich our reason, the guide 
that Providence has given us for our actions, does not perhaps explain. 



26 SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 

Even that guide lias not been consulted. Its assailants deny all past 
"^ results of human experience. They simph'- assert that property cannot 
exist in man. In this, they are contradicted by all history, by the Old 
and New Testament, by the Constitution of our " glorious Union," by 
the charter under which they exercise the power by which they oppress 
us. Yoii cannot reason with such men. And who are those men ? The 
weakest men in the country ; men who never were and never will be 
trusted by the good sense of mankind in the government of other 
national affairs. They are not philanthropists, for in no instance do they 
consult the happiness of the African : they will not allow him admission 
•^ into their borders, unless he comes to them in violation of their pledges 
under the Constitution. They are utterly ignorant of the subject which 
they have undertaken to govern. Most certainly, if their plans succeed, 
they will doom to the most abject misery those whose friends they pro- 
fess to be ; for them it will be the direst calamity. At present, their 
condition makes them a hajjpy people, employed more beneticially for 
themselves and a ^■ery large portion of the human race, than any equal 
number of laborers in the Avorld. Could the schemes of the Abolition- 
ists prevail, millions of other peo})le, who now enjoy happiness and pros- 
perity, from the fruits of their labor in manufactures, navigation, and all 
the attendant employments, would be reduced to a state of destitution. 
V The proposed object of the Abolitionists, if attained, Avill be attained by 
■* Pro\idential means much more tit and adequate than any thing they can 
devise ; but they think they can do the work better, and are anxious to 
take the business out of the hands of Providence. It is a pity that 
they could not discover the truth, that they are exactly such instruments 
as Providence uses for its inflictions, but never for its mercies. The poli- 
tical situation of Europe and of this country presents a philosophical 
. study, I think, of the highest importance, which has been little cousider- 
vl ed. What we call the rights of man, or the admission of great masses 
to the power of self-government, has brought into action the minds of 
persons utterly un(|ualiiied to judge of the subject practically, who have 
generated the wildest theories. The extravagances of communism, and 
of the injustice of the appropriation and enjoyment of property are 
among thein. These men are often more dangerous, because they are 
probably sincere and honest, but they are shaking the ^•ery foundations 
of society. They aim at a perfectability of which human nature is pro- 
bably incapable ; an equality among men of all ranks and attainments, 
which weak minds and heated imaginations only can tolerate. This 
\ agitation has recently reached the United States. It has been intro- 
duced by Enropean agents, and has brought imder its delutijns the sub- 
ject of African sla\ery in the Southern States. It is of the family of 
communism, it is the doctrine of Proudhon, that property is a crime. 
It is the same doctrine ; they have only blacked its face to disguise it. 
The agitators, as I ha^•e before said, are among the least intellectual in 
England, France and America. The best inteUigence of these countries 
has learned from a just conception of the nature and operations of 
free government, which the Aveak enthusiast cannot comprehend, the fal- 
lacy of these crude theoretical aspirations. But, unha]>pily, in our 
■^ country these delusions have been seized, to serve political ends, by bit- 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES 



27 



ter politicians inimical to the South. Into these hands has all the power 
of the Union fallen, and by these hands that power is actively used to 
crush the pohtical power, and to ci'ush the slave institution, of the South. 
Such is now our glorious Union. O^ what value, then, is this Union to 
the Southern Staples ^ Is it not a fit and dangerous instrument, while 
we live under it, to destroy us ? Is it not seen that the Abolitionists 
believe, and that it is thought abroad, that the object is already accom- 
plished ? We are like theensnared bii-d under the influence of the ser- 
pent's eye. Unless ^ve break the charm we are gone — we are victims. 
We have, if we decisively use it, the po^yer to dissipate this charm. If 
we declare our independence, we are safe. If we delay it, we increase 
our danger, and perhaps seal inevitably a disastrous and ignominious 
fate. 

The Government of the Union when first established, was a good, a 
wise, and a beneficent government. It was well balanced. It secured 
the rights, liberty and property of all sections of the country. Our ter- 
ritory was hmited and susceptible of being well directed by such a gov- 
ernment. But now all is changed. The territory is four times as large 
as it was then. Of what we originally had, our cunning friends cajoled 
us out of a large part ; of our first acquisitions they compromised us out 
of a large part ; and of all the last they have recently robbed us. They 
ha\e now three-fourths of the whole. The thousand changes which we 
have heard rung upon the Union, the " gloiious Union," " the eternal 
duration of the Union," are ludicrous, and v.ould be amusing, if they 
were not melancholy. Men of sense and fi'ee of sinister motives, laugh at 
this vaporing. No man who has any pretence to the character of a 
statesman Avould ever utter such inanities. They may do for school-boy 
exercises, or the tinsel of a dull demagogue whose invention is at fault 
tor a better flourish. A statesman would know that the michangeable 
laws of the Medes and Persians were not free constitutions ; that un- 
changeable governments will always become despotic governments, 
because the leading character of all controlling governments is encroach- 
ment, to amplify their jurisdiction. He would know this great historical 
truth ; that no territory as large as that of the present United States 
was ever governed by any other government than a despotism ; that 
this must be an eternal truth ; that every free government must feel the 
pulse of the heart at the extremities and return its pulsations ; that 
there must be a symathetic and responsive public sentiment between all 
its parts. This can never exist in vast boundaries. The extremities, 
under one pohtical temperature, are an icy clod ; under another, they 
become putrid and rotten. Whatever name may be given to the regime 
under which they may slumber or agonize, it must be a corrupt vice- 
consular system. Instead of wishing the perpetuity of any government 
over such vast boundaries, the rational lover of hberty should wish for 
its speedy dissolution, as dangerous to all just and free rule. Is not all 
this exemplified in our own case ? In nine months, in one session of 
Cong)-ess, by a great coup (Tctat, our constitution has been completely 
and forever subverted. Instead of a well balanced government, all 
power is vested in one section of the country which is in bitter hostihty 
with the other. And this is the glorious I'nion which we are to sup- 



1^ 



W^ 



28 SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 

port, for whose eternal dui-ation we are to jiray, and before wiiich the 
once proud Southron is to bow down. He ought to perish rather ! 

But let us bring to this great issue brave hearts and well strung 
nerves, and there will be nothing to fear. If four or live adjoining 
States shall unite, I do not think that our enemy will venture to at- 
tack us. 

I ho})e the South will be immediately roused from the deep sleep 
which has rendered it as tor})id as the winter swallow which has shut its 
eyes and closed its ears to the alai-ming dangers that threatens it. But 
such has been the delusion wrought by the tactics of the fanatics and 
their alhes, the low aspirants to political dominion over you ; such the 
absorbing influence of the hostile Clc^vernment of the Union and its in- 
stitutions, and of the national parties growing out of them, as to have 
neutralized all the functions of the State institutions which have been 
looked to heretofore as the great guardian of our rights, liberties and 
character. Such has been the united power of these conjbined causes 
that we may fear we shall not be unanimous. But be assured, and let 
the people be assured, that unless they themselves shall be insensible to 
honor and to shame, to the most imminent danger and to the rem.orse- 
less enmity of those who now hold absolute power over them, they must 
and will act imder the agonizing impulse of self-defence, if not fi-om 
higher motives, and they will discover that nothing short of secession 
and a reliance on their own strength, will sa\e them from disgrace and 
ruin. That we will all unite finally in this effort, there can be no doubt, 
though we may unfortunately not immediately agree. I have sanguine 
hopes, however, of a better result. But shoidd it be otherwise, let no 
one, therefore, despair of this united eftbrt ; for it must and will take 
place, though it may be delayed. Let the South continue to agitate the 
subject by all orderly means, and at all proper times, incessantly, active- 
ly, zealously, fearlessly, with a long pull and a strong pull, and the 
country will be regenerated, disenthralled and saved. Let the people 
not be beguiled, like the dog Cerberus, with a sop, if it should be offered. 
We go for our whole rights, or we are dastards. Let them beware of 
every thiiig that comes from the seat of the General Government, where 
there is neith;'" faith nor truth to be found. Let them beware even of 
those who represent them there ; though there are among them good 
and true men, who cleser\e the highest praise. Let them dismiss with 
scorn those who' have betrayed them. Let the people beware of the 
thousand untruths that are daily rung in their ears to lull and deceive 
them ; such as the following : That the C!onstitutiou has not been vio- 
lated ; that what our aggressors have been ]ileased to grant was the best 
we coidd get ; that California was honestly and constitutionally admitted 
into the Union ; that it was qiiite just, equitable and modest for a few 
squatters, and a few ignorant conquered people, to assume the sovereign- 
ty of a territory equal in extent to the aggregate of many States, with 
all the ports and harbors within its bounds on the Pacific Ocean, and the 
most valuable gold mines in the world ; that your slave property is safe, 
while your tyrannical rulers are industriously striving to destroy it ; that 
it was no outrage to hold forcible possession of the territory of an inde- 
pendent State, which was expressly held in trust for that State, and to 



S/^ 



SPEECH OK HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 29 

thi-eaten li&r with arms if she attempted to enter it ; that Texas will be 
benetitted by the dismemberment of her territory, and the destiuction 
of her tine, bold, unefi'hccable natural boundary. In fine, that a bribe 
may be tendered without insult, and accepted without disgrace. Above 
all, let the people beware of the insidious, Jesuitical cry of the Union, 
the " glorious Union." What have we left in the Union but task mas- 
ters ? Have we power to carry, or even intiuence a single measure in 
which the South is interested ? Carlyle says that the great right and 
blessing of a slave is to be obliged to work, and that for a kind master. 
The great right and blessing of the Southern man under tiie " glorious 
Union" is to be obliged to obey— and to obey whom ? A kind master ? 
one protecting his rights and his property, or respecting his feelings ? 

Let the peojjle beware of the impudent slang about the Ijenefits to 
the South, of what has been by a gross abuse of terms called the com- 
promise. A compromise must be the act of more parties than one, and 
must embrace tlie consent of both. In a compromise there is g^ising and 
taking. • We have indeed given enough ; or rather, it has been taken 
from us. But what have we gained ? Nothing — absolutely nothing. 
If any thing, name it. The fugitive slave bill, do you say, which has 
been made to figure as a gain ? It was ours before undei- the sacred 
pledge of the Constitution. The bill was only an attempt to secure us 
against the bad finth of our opponents. AVe ha\e not got e^■en that, 
nor will Ave ever get it. But if it were faithfully executed, it is too pal- 
try a thing to be named in such an argument. 

It has been attempted to say that we have got clear of the Wilmot 
Proviso. On the contraay, it has been fixed irrevocably on us. Does ^ 
it not already cover all California ? It requu-es nothing but the estab- 
lishment of new Free States, to cover all else, for which they have the 
machinery ready, with the power, in spite of us, to work it at theii- plea- 
sure, and to bring in New Mexico, Utah, and a dozen more. Nay, if 
Texas submit, this proviso will cover a large extent of territory pledged 
to be converted into slave States, which the oi'iginal proviso never was 
intended to embrace. I ask again, what has the compromise given ? 
Nothing, absolutely nothing. 

There is another danger of which the people ought to beware. We 
have among us many busy active alien counsellors, who are not our 
friends, and have no love for us or our institutions. I abhor proscription 
as unjust and dishonorable, and I so much honor the love of one's na- 
tive land, that I would ask no more of those who cannot think and feel 
with us than neutralit}' ; but that ought to be exacted. Those who 
have made the South their country in honesty and truth, and think and 
feel with us, I would embrace with our " heart of hearts," and take 
them to our bosoms as if they were " to the manor born." 

In conclusion, I pray God, in his merciful proA'idence, to release the 
faculties of Southern men from the awful torpor which so utterly be- 
numbs them, to disperse their delusions, to inspire them with some lo\'e 
of country, to endue them with some self respect, with some sense of 
honor, some fear of shame and degrad^ition. . If He , shall, in his good- 
ness and mercy, so do, we shall not much longer deliberate",, but act with 
the spirit of men, — of froeraen, as a baud of brothers, as men who know 






30 



SPEECH OF HON. LANGDON CHEVES. 



their rifjhts and dare maintain them. The South can hardly overrate 
its strength when it shall be united. It is no boast to say you are eoual 
to your enemy in arms, and you have to give or withhold what will se- 
cure you alliance in war or peace, when you shall desire either. Unite, 
and you will scatter your enemies as the autumn -svinds do fallen leaves. 
Unite, and your slave property shall be protected to the very border of 
Mason's and Dixon's line. Unite, and the Freesoilers shall, at their pe- 
ril, be your police to prevent the escape of your slaves ; California shall 
be a slave State ; the dismembered territory of Texas shall be restored, 
and you shall enjoy a full participation in all the territory which was 
conquered by your blood and treasure. Unite, and you shall form one 
of the most splendid empires on which the sun ever shone, of the most 
homogeneous population, all of the same blood and hneage, a soil the 
most fruitful, and a climate the most lovely. But submit, — submit ! 
The very sound curdles the blood in my veins. ' But, O ! great God, 
unite us, and a tale of submission shall n(3ver be told ! 



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